Update on casualties and damage in Guatemala from PRENSA LIBRE of October 11 and 12 provided some information on the extent of the damage country-wide as of last week:
657 muertos (people dead - note that these figures include 169 people
killed in the total destruction of the Santiago Atitlan village of
Panabaj through a mudslide).
99 heridos (people hurt)
577 desaparecidos (disappeared)
200,000 personas afectadas (people affected)
120,000 personas están albergadas (in temporary shelters)
5,352 casas afectadas (houses damaged)
1,478 viviendas destruidas (houses destroyed)
515 comunidades afectadas (communities affected)
316 planteles educativos afectados (educational facilties affected)
One of our professors (email in full below) is very familiar with this region, testifying: "Having seen the grinding poverty of the Maya in Guatemala, I can assure you that there is a very real need and anything will help."
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info@worldlakes.org
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Full Text of Robin's appeal Note: all links added by Steph:
Guatemala was hit pretty hard by hurricane Stan (thankfully the Sakapultek, the group with whom I work, were not affected). Torrential rains caused mudslides, killing thousands of people (an entire Tz'utujil village had to be declared a mass grave site because the mud was so high it was impossible to recover bodies). Many, many more people are now environmental refugees--homeless and displaced. Most of the victims are Kaqchikel and Tz'utujil Maya people living around Lake Atitlan (in the region of Panajachel, for those familiar with Guate). In addition to the immediate damage caused by Stan, entire crops have
been wiped out from flooding and a severe corn shortage is probably going follow. This was a poor area to begin with, with many people living in mud homes and having to scrape by to feed corn to their families.
I received the attached flier from Cholsamaj, a respected Maya organization . . . [as well as correspondence from] an anthropologist friend who does fieldwork in the Atitlan region. People he knows and close friends of his have died due to Stan. He just left for Guatemala to do whatever he can. He's an honest person and I know he'll be spending his own money on this, despite being a graduate student on a limited budget (he's worked in the community for over 10 years and has a fierce loyalty to it).
Thanks for reading this far. I encourage you to do whatever you can.
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